Mr. GARDINER:

No.

Mr. BLACKMORE:

While I do not wish

to be too critical, I think we are drifting too much in agriculture, and I am in close contact with a good deal of agriculture in my own constituency.

44561-190*

Mr. GARDINER:

We have drifted very

close to that top line the hon. member was .talking about a few moments ago.

Mr. BLACKMORE:

There is a great

shortage of eggs in Britain.

Mr. GARDINER:

Of course. There is a

shortage of wheat in Ireland, too.

Mr. BLACKMORE:

I do not think the

minister needs to worry about sending the eggs over. If I conceive the minister's task aright, it is to get the eggs, and leave it to somebody else to send them over. If they have not the ships to take the eggs over, that is somebody else's worry. While we are discussing eggs, it is our worry to see that we get the eggs, and then to see that we have the means of processing the eggs, so that they can send them across. Have we that? If we have that, all right; then probably, as far as we are concerned, our egg worry is over.

As I say, I believe that we are drifting too much. There is too much uncertainty. I think it was a year ago that I argued that the price of eggs should be fixed at a figure which would be remunerative to the farmer and that he should be guaranteed that price for two years. Someone will ask "Where is the money coming from to pay for that?" Well, that is another matter, but the important thing for us is to get the eggs, to be sure we are going to get the eggs, plenty of them, not only for Britain but for ourselves. We will take care of the rest of it after that.

From the remarks the minister made I was a little uncertain as to whether he had an idea of how many eggs and how much butter and how much cheese and how much of various other things he really wanted.

Mr. GARDINER:

I gave the figures this

afternoon.

Mr. BLACKMORE:

You really wanted

them?

Mr. GARDINER:

We want 1,500,000 cases of eggs for England this year.

Mr. BLACKMORE:

But you are not sure that you are going to get them?

Mr. GARDINER:

We are pretty certain

we can get them, yes. Britain cannot ship them as shelled eggs; we have to dry them.

Mr. BLACKMORE:

If you wanted a

third more, could you get them?

Mr. GARDINER:

Britain has not said

that she wants a third more.

Mr. BLACKMORE:

I got a statement

from the minister; it is difficult in a long speech like that to recall all he said, but

War Appropriation-Agriculture

lie gave me the idea that he could sell all we could produce of a number of commodities. I believe he named about seven, including-eggs, cheese, butter-

Mr. GARDINER:

Not butter. We are not selling any butter in Great Britain.

Mr. BLACKMORE:

The minister named

a number of commodities of which, he said, we could sell all we could get. That is fine. If we can sell all we can get, let us get all we can sell-which is an entirely different matter, and I say that we are falling down in the matter of getting all that we can sell.

Mr. GARDINER:

Will you produce all

that you can sell without putting any men in the army or any men in the munitions plants?

Mr. BLACKMORE:

Well, now, the minister's question has raised the matter I started talking about at the beginning. The very first thing for us to know is, taking eggs for instance, how many eggs do you want in Canada?

Mr. GARDINER:

One million five hundred thousand cases.

Mr. BLACKMORE:

Will you be content

to stop right there and produce no more than that for next year?